Bitcoin Bull Emboldened, Calls for $60,000 BTC Price
It’s almost as though the more depressing the performance in the bitcoin price, the more emboldened bitcoin bulls become.
Cryptocurrencies are barely trading in the green and the bitcoin price remains more than 60% from its 2017 peak, but that is not dampening the conviction of Susquehanna Group’s Bart Smith and TenX Co-Founder Julian Hosp. In fact, Hosp, whose blockchain startup is behind a cryptocurrency wallet app and debit card, says this year’s market volatility is unfolding just as he expected. Hosp told CNBC:
“Back then, December, [the] price was at $20,000 all-time high. I predicted for 2018, we’re going to see $5,000 and $60,000. So $5,000, we pretty much hit it, so let’s see if we can do the $60,000. I’m still quite confident.
The bitcoin price revisited its pre-bitcoin future lows of $5,700 last month. And while it’s come off of those levels somewhat, BTC is a far cry from its high of nearly $20,000, not to mention Hosp’s bullish forecast for a bitcoin price of $60,000.
He acknowledges that there needs to be a major catalyst, one that can drive the bitcoin price to at least $10,000 by the end of the summer. This could be friendly regulation in a given jurisdiction, perhaps something along the lines that we’ve seen in Malta, which in recent days passed a trio of blockchain and cryptocurrency bills into law. Incidentally, this development in what’s been dubbed Blockchain Island doesn’t seem to have done much to lift the tide of the market. But the TenX chief maintains that if the bitcoin price can reach $10,000 this year, it can hit $20,000. From there, he’s relying on positive media attention to place bitcoin $60,000 within reach.
“Currency of the Internet”
While many altcoins have suffered double-digit percentage declines in the past 24-hours or so, the bitcoin price hasn’t performed as poorly and is even trading fractionally higher at the time of publication. Brian Kelly of BKCM told CNBC it’s because bitcoin has emerged as the “currency of the internet,” and Susquehanna’s Bart Smith couldn’t agree more.
Except that Smith prefers to think of bitcoin as “digital gold”, which in addition to cross-border money transfers represent its valid use cases today. He told CNBC “it’s hard to imagine bitcoin losing these two use cases,” unlike many of the altcoins that surfaced in the wake of bitcoin fever that got way ahead of themselves in terms of valuation.
Smith pointed to bitcoin as the reserve currency of the cryptocurrency community, especially outside of the United States where 90%-95% of cryptocurrency trading volume unfolds and where crypto isn’t traded for dollars. His argument is that “if you want to own the asset you can actually use today and that people are functionally using, it’s bitcoin.” As for the bitcoin price, volatility versus the S&P 500 is actually on the decline, as are trading volumes, which suggests to traders that the market downturn could be fizzling out.
Originally published at hacked.com on July 11, 2018.
